My life in the center of the world -- musings on my family, community (local, global, physical and virtual), people and more. Oh and of course, a few words on tech related start-ups, within the context of living in the ulimate start-up with humble goal of repairing the world. Venture backed by over 3,000 years of history, thought, culture, and angst.
By Jacob Ner-David

April 08, 2009

If A Man is Killed in Jerusalem, Do We Care?

As usual, the Israeli government and security apparatus, in their infinite wisdom, chose the day before Pesach to finally carry out the destruction order on the house of one of the "tractor" terrorists in the village of Tzur Bacher, just 2 kilometers from my house, on the Southern edge of Jerusalem.

Putting the issue of the timing (I can't even begin to write about that), and even putting aside the proven uselessness of house demotion as a deterent against future terrorism (numerous ISRAELI GOVERNMENT panels have concluded hosue demolitions have zero deterant value), want to address the fact that during this event a 20 year old Jerusalemite (resident of Jabel Mukaber, next door village to Tzur Bacher) was killed by the Israeli security forces, and you probably don't even know. It was not reported on even in today's Yediot Achranot, Israel's most widely read newspaper (it was on Ynet yesterday, their internet site). According to Israeli security forces, a man drove his car directly into a group of Border Patrol personnel, who were on hand to prevent a riot from breaking out while the hosue was being destroyed. According to local residents, the man was on his way to the post office to pay bills...

Who knows. Twenty shots were fired into the car, he died.

Another family in mourning.

Do we care?

As we head into Pesach, the holiday of liberation and freedom, just take a moment and think of all of those who do not enjoy basic freedoms. And think of the part in you that wants to be free of caring, and recognize that true freedom can only exist if we sacrifice a little of our individual "freedom," and care about our fellow people, our world and it's future.

Comments

The incident was widely reported in all local news websites, including Russian-language websites.

Speaking of sacrifice, haven't we already sacrificed enough of our own freedom? As a frequent flyer, you should be familiar with humiliating security checks in airports. Just think why we have to pass them.